Oldenburg and van Bruggen have been working collaboratively since their initial meeting in 1976 and their subsequent marriage the following year. To date, the pair have executed more than thirty-five sculptures in monumental scale at sites in Europe, Asia, and the United States. When they met, he was already an accomplished sculptor and she a respected art historian and curator. Oldenburg, along with Jim Dine, Andy Warhol and James Rosenquist, had emerged at the forefront of the "Pop Art" movement in the early sixties and by the mid-70s was focused almost entirely on large outdoor projects. Van Bruggen had worked at the famed Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and taught for five years at the university level. The pair is celebrated internationally for their transformation of ordinary objects into colossal works, which are both considered aesthetic and engineering wonders.

Plaintoir is the first of their works designed specifically for a garden setting. The sculptures shape, a gardener's trowel, is an appropriate addition to the Frederik Meijer Gardens collection. Painted in brilliant red and measuring more than twenty-three feet in height, Plantoir is an exaggeration, in form and color, befitting the work of Oldenburg and van Bruggen.